Developmental Issues in the Study of Coping

Developmental issues generally have been ignored in the study of coping. Thus, the goals of this paper were threefold: (1) to summarise theory in which coping is placed in the larger context of emotion regulation; (2) to review briefly existing literature related to consistency and change in coping, interrelations among coping strategies at different ages, and the relation of coping to the quality of social functioning at different ages; and (3) to summarise data from a longitudinal study pertaining to the aforementioned issues. Coping was relatively consistent across time (over a six-year period); there were some age-related changes in mean levels of children's adult-reported coping; and there was considerable consistency in interrelations of coping strategies at different ages. In general, relations of coping to social functioning were similar across age, although some age-related changes in patterns were noted.